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Amarok 2.5 adds GPodder support

The Amarok development team has released version 2.5 of its open source music player and organiser, code-named "Earth Moving". Among the changes highlighted by the developers are re-written support for USB mass storage devices, GPodder.net podcast synchronisation and an integrated Amazon MP3 store. The GPodder.net support includes the ability to browse directly from Amarok through the list of recommended podcasts on GPodder.net.

Users of playlists on Amarok will find the new playlist functionality in 2.5 such as the ability to use formatted strings in Playlist layout items as prefixes and suffixes, dragging and dropping tracks in an empty area in the list of playlists to create a new playlist, and, in that same empty area, the addition of a new "create new playlist" action. The developers list a number of minor changes and bug fixes such as now correctly recognising iPhone 3Gs, not freezing in the playlist generator, reduced CPU consumption and workarounds to a Qt bug that crashed the player.

Amarok's version numbering has also been simplified from three digits (the last release was 2.4.3) to a two digit format; the developers say this will reflect their development process and that 2.6 is the next planned version with new features. The precompiled binary versions for various Linux distributions have not yet been updated in the various distributions repositories for this latest version, but the source code (FTP link) is available to download as is the Windows installer (FTP link). Amarok is licensed under the GPLv2.